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Eye exams are as important as physicals and dental health

Vision Awareness month is upon us, but why is that so important? As a person who has had to wear corrective lenses since I was very little, I have never really experienced life without frames dangling off my face, and was told that the contacts I wou

Vision Awareness month is upon us, but why is that so important? As a person who has had to wear corrective lenses since I was very little, I have never really experienced life without frames dangling off my face, and was told that the contacts I would require for my whole life would give me tremendous headaches.

Because of this, my parents ultimately decided I should wear glasses instead and I have been sporting a pair ever since. Indeed, many of my childhood memories have one thing in common because of that decision — my free hand is usually always pushing the frames back up into their correct position, from where they had been resting on my nose.

I know I am reliant on my powers of sight just like everyone else, and that having an eye exam on a regular basis is important, but I never rated them as important as say, a visit to the dentist or a checkup with my doctor however.

Until I spoke with local optometrist Grant Balen on Wednesday, May 11, I never realized how naive I was being.

Diabetes, Parkinson’s, cancer, aneurysms, all of these things can be diagnosed through changes in the eyes.

Diabetic retinopathy is a real thing.

For those of you who don’t know what that is, it is a diabetic complication that affects the eyes and is caused by damage to the blood vessels in the back of the eye.

Balen said everything in the human body is interconnected and the more I look into it, the more I realize he is right.

You see, the eyes are a direct growth of the central nervous system and are one of the first things to develop in the embryonic stage.

The old adage that the eyes are windows to the human soul means so much more, now that I know how reflective eyes are to what is going on in a person’s body.

The point I want to make is that if you didn’t think eye exams are as important as the optometrists say, or if you’re one of those people that thinks maybe it is a cash grab like so much else these days, think again.

Eye exams for children under 19 and seniors over 65 are covered by our country’s health care system, and for the rest of us, don’t cost nearly as much as you might think.

Regardless of the costs involved however, the state of your health should not be restricted to monetary concerns.

If you think there’s a problem with your eyes, or you have suspicions something else might be an issue, maybe it would be beneficial to have someone qualified look at them.

Being proactive and taking preventative measures while keeping an eye on your health, in my opinion, is just plain smart thinking.

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